Barney's Blog

Google Singled Out for Bad Deeds

The way the news of Google evading (legally) taxes broke says as much about Google's reputation as it does our broken tax system. The news is that Google funnels profits overseas to countries like Ireland (where corporate taxes are low) and keeps the expenses in the U.S. and other places (where taxes are high), thus avoiding giving billions to Uncle Sam.

While legal (unfortunately), this does not exactly make Google a good U.S. corporate citizen. It also makes a mockery of efforts to reduce corporate taxes. If one is already avoiding taxes, is it hypocritical to complain about the tax rate? You tell me.

My latest point relates to the fact that many companies, including Microsoft, go the Ireland tax-dodge route. So why is Google singled out? Is their approach more egregious, or does it just make for a better headline?

Should these massively profitable companies be able to skip out on taxes, while we pony up with sales, property, federal and sometime state income taxes, along with tolls and a zillion other government fees? Should we all funnel our income through Ireland and claim our expenses in the good old U.S.?

Microsoft is planning to activate "Insights for MyAnalytics" sometime late this month for most Office 365 users, but the ability of organizations to manage this feature won't be available until possibly mid-May.